Day 9: Resistance is Necessary

[Wordsworth2]

Hi all,

New post about how I've tried to resist cravings. Please feel free to read, comment like or share. Hope it helps some people to resist them.

seanfit1973.wixsite.com/fat...

Stay strong.

[TheAwfulToad Visitor]

I would guess that you're "craving" things (I prefer the expression "feeling hungry") because your meals appear to be extremely low in fat, and you're eating things that exacerbate hunger by causing a sugar rush followed by a crash - eg., porridge and bread. It's a myth that these are satiating; both of them have a very high GI (around 65) which means your body has to rapidly clear them out of your bloodstream into fat storage. If you're insulin-resistant, it will tend to overshoot and then struggle to recover those calories between meals (postprandial hypoglycemia), which means you'll feel desperately hungry. You sound like you're aware of the risk of eating too little, but your body probably thinks it's dying.

You're quite right that you shouldn't attempt to skip meals, of course, but when you do eat a meal, choose something that's genuinely filling, and eat enough of it. If you can dump some of the "triggers" - broadly, things that are high in sugar and starch - and replace them with a bit of fat and protein, you'll have less of a rollercoaster ride. Doubly true if you're doing couch-to-5K.

Incidentally, if you're still feeling full of cold, I'd give yourself a break. When I feel ill my normal eating pattern just goes out the window and I feel an irresistible urge to eat doughnuts and fried rice. I simply trust that my body knows what it's doing, and sure enough, when I get better, my eating habits return to normal.

As for the kids, how about training them to not eat rubbish all the time? Don't keep it in the house. They'll moan and whine for a bit, but hey, it's your house. We didn't have the cupboards stocked with chocolate and crisps when I were a lad and it never did us any harm. Mind you, we did live in a cardboard box in the howling wastelands of Yorkshire, scavenging coal for a living, but that's another story.

[Wordsworth2 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Hi TAT,

Thanks for the advice, its given me a lot to think about.

I called them 'cravings' because, even when I'm full, I still want them and feel like I have to have them. If it was just hunger, once I was full those feelings would go. Yesterday was definitely 'hunger' though, after being so long without food.

I will certainly spend some of my day researching the approach you talked about and finding foods that fit that. However, I don't know if my body is wired differently but, when I have porridge for breakfast I never feel hungry until lunch, and when I have a sandwich at lunch, again I feel full and satisfied. Maybe that's simply a psychological thing.

Again, thanks for your advice, it's certainly something I will look in to.

[Tiggerr in reply to Wordsworth2]

You're not necessarily wired differently. For breakfast I can pretty much eat carbs until the cows come home without triggering any cravings but any carbs later in the day will generally spark off a terrible spiral where I am likely to eat even though I feel full or even bloated.

[FatFairNFifty-ish in reply to Tiggerr]

I’m the same. I always have carbs for breakfast (Weetabix usually). This keeps me full until lunchtime. No cravings. However, if I even get a sniff of carbs later in the day then I’m a goner !!

[Tiggerr in reply to FatFairNFifty-ish]

Interesting. Maybe TheAwfulToad knows whether this is a 'thing' or not!?

My current situation is that I'm now on intermittent fasting so breakfast is a thing of the past.

Good luck with everything

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to Tiggerr]

Absolutely no idea

I think Hidden is right that we all go into this with slightly different metabolic quirks. Healthy people, of course, can eat pretty much anything and remain healthy, but when you're overweight, then almost by definition something is badly amiss. You won't be able to process carbs properly, and I doubt that any overweight person can cope with the 80%+ carbs recommended by the dietitians. Dumping carbs for a while gives your body a chance to sort itself out.

I can now have a croissant for breakfast if I feel like it and know that it's not going to have any impact on my weight or appetite. But that wouldn't have worked when I was fat. I can clearly remember being hungry every day by 11am and popping out to the butty van for a mid-morning snack - and that was after a carby breakfast at 8am.

[Tiggerr in reply to TheAwfulToad]

So nothing in the annals of weight loss Thanks for responding.

[Tiggerr]

My own experience is that I've been in your shoes fighting those feelings of hunger and lost 18kgs but most days over those 6 months were a struggle and it was mostly sheer willpower.

TAT has described a way of eating where willpower has little to do with losing weight. Regardless of all the literature backing up what he's saying, I've also proven to myself that carbs are my trigger and fats satisfy. Simples!

[Hidden]

Do what works for you

I used to have a breakfast very high in fat and found I was getting the urge to snack a lot around mid morning.

Last week, when I went back to work after Christmas, I realised I had nothing in the house for breakfast and that I would have to eat breakfast at a bar near my work. So I had a typical Spanish breakfast (I live in Spain) of toast and tomato....and for the first time in ages I felt completely satisfied until lunch and didn't get the urge to snack.

I have also lost weight this week, which I don't want to do as I'm maintaining, so found I was actually having to make myself eat at 11am to maintain my weight.

Bodies are strange.

[Wordsworth2 in reply to Hidden]

They are indeed. I've had yogurts for breakfast before, full fat ones and by 10am I'm very hungry and start going to the dining hall for a sausage roll. Even eggs don't keep me going until lunch. Porridge or toast does, though.

I suppose what works for some doesn't work for others.

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to Wordsworth2]

You may simply not have eaten enough - just including more fat, in and of itself, won't be adequate. My weight-loss breakfast from 15 years ago was as follows:

- 2 eggs, 1 sausage patty, 1 or 2 rashers of bacon, mushrooms, all cooked in butter and coconut oil.

- Side salad, no dressing

- 2-3 tbsp of Greek yoghurt, unsweetened

- Coffee with cream

which I guess was about 500kCal. It felt pretty filling. I can't even remember what I ate for lunch, or if I had lunch at all.

Also bear in mind that most commercial yoghurts are absolutely loaded with sugar and rubbish. Some of them aren't even yoghurt. I guess you were picking a natural, unflavoured one, but the average supermarket yoghurt is about as healthy as a Mars bar.